Biography

About me

I am Tara la Loba, a passionate dancer and teacher. I strive to live in harmony with my body and my mind. I love my individuality and would not like to be pigeonholed or put in a box. Perhaps, due o this fact, I am authentic and versatile as a dancer and teacher. I am described as being spirited, open-minded, warm, vivacious and unconventional. I love my life. And for me dancing is an expression of this love. With my art and my courses I want to reflect some of the energy that life continues giving me. I am a bride of the dance, without it I cease to exist. I am forever attached to the movement in music, so closely connected, like a tree blowing in the wind.

Music and dance have always played a big role in my life. I spent my childhood in Germany, Ex-Jugoslavia and a small part of it in South Africa. In Jugoslavia, I came into contact with the music and folkloric dances of the Balkan. In the evenings, I always mingled with the adults in excitement to dance, I really enjoyed the music. When I was about 16 years of age I took a few courses and workshops in the field of Jazz and Modern Dance, and even then I was mostly interested the Isolation technique. A few years later, I came to know the Oriental Dance. When I was 20 and living in Berlin, a neighbor asked me if I was not the Bellydancer whom he had recently seen dancing somewhere around, that question I had to deny, but the idea itself appealed to me. So well, thats when I started to learn classical Oriental Dance (see education and training). A few years later once I had learned the art of Oriental Dance.

I once read a book, an encyclopedia of goddesses; this book awoke my interest in ritual dancing. Ever since then I have been exploring rituals and dances of various cultures. This has in the process lead me through interesting paths of life, like living in an ashram in India in Vrindavhan where I learned some ritual dances.

Eventually, alongside the desire to dance I felt the desire to play with fire. As these grew, I decided to follow this impulse and asked a couple of friendly artists to assist me in the art of fire play. Since then, the exciting element is fixed to my repertoire: Fire Torches (swinging), fire fans, fire swords, fire-swallowing and spitting, various handguns and candlesticks (Shamadan).

Relatively late (in 2005), I discovered Tribal Fusion after three colleagues independent from each other told me that I absolutely had to learn Tribal Fusion, because that would fit to me so well. So I again explored this dance style, and found out that they were right. I knew immediately that Tribal Fusion dance is what I wanted to do. Tribal Fusion was for me like coming home. I visited a variety of workshops (see Training and Qualifications)

Later on I became a co-founder of ATS-Tribes (2007) and Tribal Fusion Performance Company called “Con Fusion” (2011).

In 2009 whilst dancing at a festival in Romania I came into contact with Romanians who taught me the Roma Traditional dance also known as “gypsy dancing